Media madness
The past week has been a media frenzy as Brazil experienced its largest plane crash to date on Friday and the presidential election yesterday.
Friday afternoon, a commercial plane carrying 155 people from Manaus to Brasilia crashed in the jungle, possibly after colliding with a small, private plane which landed safely. There do not appear to be any survivors, and the news channels here were running special coverage of the crash and the search for survivors all weekend. Everywhere I went, people were talking about the tragedy (and the elections).
Sunday, I witnessed my first Brazilian election when I went with my roommate to watch her vote--the election officials actually wouldn't let me watch while she was voting, although they did let me look at the voting machine.
The political system, as expected, is significantly different from the U.S. system. First of all, it is mandated by law that all Brazilian citizens from 18 to 70 years of age must vote. You can start voting as early as 16 and continue to vote until you die (the news coverage of the election showed people more than 100 years old going to vote). Voters receive a little slip of paper to prove that they voted, and you need to show this paper in order to accomplish any number of bureaucratic tasks here.
Voting has been completely computerized since 2000; Brazil was the first country to adopt a nationwide electronic voting system that integrates voter registration, the casting of votes and the regional/national tallying of votes (Posner, 2006). The machines are basically composed of a 10-key number pad as well as buttons to confirm, correct and to submit a blank vote for a particular office. For each vacancy, you punch in the number of your candidate, which brings up the name, picture and political party on the screen. You then have a chance to correct it or confirm it.
The major downside I saw was that they post the list of candidates outside the actual room where you vote, so if you forget the candidate's number and didn't write it down, you can't leave to go look it up. My roommate's daughter did call on her cell phone from the polling place to ask for the number of one candidate. They didn't used to let you bring in a cheat sheet with you, but now they do. Supposedly they don't put the list of candidates and their numbers inside the actual room to not have people to dally at the machine.
Another point of interest--alphabetization in Brazil is usually done by first name. As a matter of fact, many of the candidates only went by their first name. Can you imagine in the U.S. "Jim for President" or "Shirley for Senator?"
There are now more than 15 political parties here, although there were originally just two after the military dictatorship ended in 1985. By law, the parties get free airtime on TV during the campaign season in the allotted time slot for political announcements, so one party's segment may include 10-20 different candidates.
In this election, each person could cast one vote for each of the five vacancies--president, governor, senator, federal deputy and state deputy. Each of the 26 states plus the Federal District elected a governor and a senator. In total, 513 "federal deputies" were elected (53 of them in my state, Minas Gerais) and 77 "state deputies" in Minas Gerais.
For the offices of president and governor, the candidates who receive more votes than the sum of all their competitors win the election in the first round. If that criteria is not met, there is a run-off election where the majority rules. For senator, whoever receives the most votes wins the office. For the federal and state deputies, the top X number of candidates win the X number of vacancies, so the 77 candidates for state deputy receiving the highest number of votes were elected to the office. There is a HUGE number of candidates compared to the U.S.; for federal deputy, for example, there were more than 500 candidates from which to choose.
The incumbent president, Lula da Silva, was initially favored to win the presidential election in the first round, but the well-timed "breaking" of an odd scandal and his decision to skip the nationally televised debate for presedential candidates helped him lose his lead. As far as I can understand, people from Lula's party supposedly tried to buy a dossier of dirt tying their rival party to an ambulance scandal. Lula says he didn't know anything about it. Now that part that I really don't understand is that his party supposedly bought this dossier from guys who were already in prison for the ambulance scandal, so I'm thinking if they are already convicted, isn't the evidence public? In any event, there will be a presidential run-off election at the end of this month.
People campaigned by radio/TV/newspaper ads, pamphlets that are now littering the entire city, painting walls with their names/parties/candidate numbers, hiring trucks with loudspeakers to drive around blasting propaganda (which almost always included a catchy song) and hiring people to wave their flags at busy intersections.
Interestingly, during election coverage tonight the national news quoted newspapers from other countries, mostly from the U.S. I don't think I've ever seen the U.S. TV news quote international coverage of a particularly story/issue, but I admittedly don't usually watch the news.
It's been interesting to learn about the electoral process here, but it's also a bit overwhelming with literally everybody talking about it wherever you go. I'm ready for it to be over, but I guess that's just part of how Brazil is a nation of observers, as I mentioned before. Not just observers but also commentators.
Preparations are in full-swing for another work team that will be arriving from the U.S. next weekend. I will be staying with them at the community center in São Gabriel, so I'm sure that will be interesting.
So what have I been doing? Well, I've been doing some PR, trying to prepare a display for a campaign the local Methodist churches to raise support for the Shade and Fresh Water Projects for Christmas; trying to figure out which printers are and are not working and how to optimize where they are being used in São Gabriel (this is especially where I'm feeling the absence of Chris, the other volunteer who was handling the computer stuff but has now, sniff, left us); painting with the other teachers; trying to find out whether or not I'll be doing English classes as the two projects (I will definitely start back teaching at Liberdade this week); helping to host potential volunteers; helping the two kids with their American penpals (now, ironically, it's bugging them to write back after they asked me to bug the Americans to find out why they hadn't written); hugging and helping with the kids (I haven't forgotten that this is the crucial part) and growing my patience. It is amazing how many times you can say that you need something done, purchased, etc. and nothing happens. I guess because the unexpected so often hinders what you are planning to do here that nobody puts too much stake in what you say you're going to do until it actually happens.
Today I was quite surprised by the reaction of the older (afternoon) kids when I showed them a multicolored autumn leaf I brought back from Minnesota. They actually paid attention and asked questions. That gives me an idea of how to change the format for English class to make it more interesting for them.
And finally, I must have jinxed us when I said before that the water was cut off in the poorer neighborhoods during this huge construction project but not in our neighborhood, because it appears the water was off for a few hours today, including when I got home. Thankfully, it seems to be back on.
Friday afternoon, a commercial plane carrying 155 people from Manaus to Brasilia crashed in the jungle, possibly after colliding with a small, private plane which landed safely. There do not appear to be any survivors, and the news channels here were running special coverage of the crash and the search for survivors all weekend. Everywhere I went, people were talking about the tragedy (and the elections).
Sunday, I witnessed my first Brazilian election when I went with my roommate to watch her vote--the election officials actually wouldn't let me watch while she was voting, although they did let me look at the voting machine.
The political system, as expected, is significantly different from the U.S. system. First of all, it is mandated by law that all Brazilian citizens from 18 to 70 years of age must vote. You can start voting as early as 16 and continue to vote until you die (the news coverage of the election showed people more than 100 years old going to vote). Voters receive a little slip of paper to prove that they voted, and you need to show this paper in order to accomplish any number of bureaucratic tasks here.
Voting has been completely computerized since 2000; Brazil was the first country to adopt a nationwide electronic voting system that integrates voter registration, the casting of votes and the regional/national tallying of votes (Posner, 2006). The machines are basically composed of a 10-key number pad as well as buttons to confirm, correct and to submit a blank vote for a particular office. For each vacancy, you punch in the number of your candidate, which brings up the name, picture and political party on the screen. You then have a chance to correct it or confirm it.
The major downside I saw was that they post the list of candidates outside the actual room where you vote, so if you forget the candidate's number and didn't write it down, you can't leave to go look it up. My roommate's daughter did call on her cell phone from the polling place to ask for the number of one candidate. They didn't used to let you bring in a cheat sheet with you, but now they do. Supposedly they don't put the list of candidates and their numbers inside the actual room to not have people to dally at the machine.
Another point of interest--alphabetization in Brazil is usually done by first name. As a matter of fact, many of the candidates only went by their first name. Can you imagine in the U.S. "Jim for President" or "Shirley for Senator?"
There are now more than 15 political parties here, although there were originally just two after the military dictatorship ended in 1985. By law, the parties get free airtime on TV during the campaign season in the allotted time slot for political announcements, so one party's segment may include 10-20 different candidates.
In this election, each person could cast one vote for each of the five vacancies--president, governor, senator, federal deputy and state deputy. Each of the 26 states plus the Federal District elected a governor and a senator. In total, 513 "federal deputies" were elected (53 of them in my state, Minas Gerais) and 77 "state deputies" in Minas Gerais.
For the offices of president and governor, the candidates who receive more votes than the sum of all their competitors win the election in the first round. If that criteria is not met, there is a run-off election where the majority rules. For senator, whoever receives the most votes wins the office. For the federal and state deputies, the top X number of candidates win the X number of vacancies, so the 77 candidates for state deputy receiving the highest number of votes were elected to the office. There is a HUGE number of candidates compared to the U.S.; for federal deputy, for example, there were more than 500 candidates from which to choose.
The incumbent president, Lula da Silva, was initially favored to win the presidential election in the first round, but the well-timed "breaking" of an odd scandal and his decision to skip the nationally televised debate for presedential candidates helped him lose his lead. As far as I can understand, people from Lula's party supposedly tried to buy a dossier of dirt tying their rival party to an ambulance scandal. Lula says he didn't know anything about it. Now that part that I really don't understand is that his party supposedly bought this dossier from guys who were already in prison for the ambulance scandal, so I'm thinking if they are already convicted, isn't the evidence public? In any event, there will be a presidential run-off election at the end of this month.
People campaigned by radio/TV/newspaper ads, pamphlets that are now littering the entire city, painting walls with their names/parties/candidate numbers, hiring trucks with loudspeakers to drive around blasting propaganda (which almost always included a catchy song) and hiring people to wave their flags at busy intersections.
Interestingly, during election coverage tonight the national news quoted newspapers from other countries, mostly from the U.S. I don't think I've ever seen the U.S. TV news quote international coverage of a particularly story/issue, but I admittedly don't usually watch the news.
It's been interesting to learn about the electoral process here, but it's also a bit overwhelming with literally everybody talking about it wherever you go. I'm ready for it to be over, but I guess that's just part of how Brazil is a nation of observers, as I mentioned before. Not just observers but also commentators.
Preparations are in full-swing for another work team that will be arriving from the U.S. next weekend. I will be staying with them at the community center in São Gabriel, so I'm sure that will be interesting.
So what have I been doing? Well, I've been doing some PR, trying to prepare a display for a campaign the local Methodist churches to raise support for the Shade and Fresh Water Projects for Christmas; trying to figure out which printers are and are not working and how to optimize where they are being used in São Gabriel (this is especially where I'm feeling the absence of Chris, the other volunteer who was handling the computer stuff but has now, sniff, left us); painting with the other teachers; trying to find out whether or not I'll be doing English classes as the two projects (I will definitely start back teaching at Liberdade this week); helping to host potential volunteers; helping the two kids with their American penpals (now, ironically, it's bugging them to write back after they asked me to bug the Americans to find out why they hadn't written); hugging and helping with the kids (I haven't forgotten that this is the crucial part) and growing my patience. It is amazing how many times you can say that you need something done, purchased, etc. and nothing happens. I guess because the unexpected so often hinders what you are planning to do here that nobody puts too much stake in what you say you're going to do until it actually happens.
Today I was quite surprised by the reaction of the older (afternoon) kids when I showed them a multicolored autumn leaf I brought back from Minnesota. They actually paid attention and asked questions. That gives me an idea of how to change the format for English class to make it more interesting for them.
And finally, I must have jinxed us when I said before that the water was cut off in the poorer neighborhoods during this huge construction project but not in our neighborhood, because it appears the water was off for a few hours today, including when I got home. Thankfully, it seems to be back on.
posted by Christine Piggee at
5:50 PM
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